Sitemeter

John Schroeder asks, "So, wave/particle duality is the "weirdest" physics theory? Now, here is my question of that ages: "Why can completely rational physicists the world over use that theory without comment on that fact on a daily basis, and at the same time decry religious notions like the Trinity and Christ's dual nature as hocum?" Just wondering."

Joe responded...

They shouldn't. At least that's what Huston Smith says in an short interview on quantum weirdness. As Smith intriguingly points out, there are three orders of magnitude, "three worlds" --the mega world (galaxies), the macro world (our world), and the micro world (quantum level). It is impossible to map the mega or micro world on the mega world, says Smith, and sense our language is designed to describe the macro level, it is impossible to talk about those "worlds" without running into contradictions (e.g., "light is both a wave and a particle). Since we can't even comprehend the finite physical realm, how can we expect to speak about such topics as the Trinity or the Incarnation in a way that does not sound, to some people, like "hocum?"

This is a new thought to me, but one that is obvious once you read it.

Physics is telling us that a cat can be both alive and dead at the same time, yet people complain about how hard it is to understand the trinity.

If you're a physicist you've done interference experiments where the wave nature of matter is directly observable. It is a readily observable fact. On the other hand your average secular physicist probably has problems with the accuracy of scripture and the nature of God as presented by Christians. Whether a particular interpretation of the Bible, such as Trinitarianism, is comprehensible or not is beside the point since they wouldn't agree to the assumptions that go into making that given discussion meaningfull.

wouldn't find it meaningfull to have a discussion about a particular interpretation of the Bible such as Trinitarianism.

You are moving the debate away from the incomprehensibility of the ideas, which is the point being made, to epistomology, about what counts as a source of knowledge.

What this means is that according to your statements, the complaint that the trinity is hard to comprehend is actually a red herring (Once again, the point of the post). The real issue for you, seems to be that only general revelation counts as knowledge.